Suicide is described as the tendencies to end one’s life, which are caused by complicated motives. As individuals process a suicidal behavior, there is a range of suicidal threats and ideas which they have when they are contemplating suicide. Also, self-harm is described as a force that is exerted by someone with intent to inflict physical wounds on one’s body when the individual is unable to deal with psychological distress. Examples of self-harm include self-injury as well as conscious suicidal intent that leads to severe damage to one’s body. In the stages of human development, there are times when people contemplate suicide or committing self-harm . According to Love and Guthrie (2011), suicide and self-harm have been an increasing global concern such that more than a million people die each year from suicide. Among the demographic groups that are affected, most deaths and self-injuries are reported among those aged between 12 and 20 years of age. According to Jordan (2018) , suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens that are aged between 10 to 24 years, and figures show that self-harm rates are up to 20 times more frequent than suicide. Jordan (2018) suggests that the challenges of the adolescence stage might be a cause of the increasing suicide rates and rates of self-harm among teens. As such, some sociologists have attempted to address some of the problems that teenagers face, which increase their risk of contemplated suicide and self-harm . These scholars include Erik Erickson, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, John Bowlby, and Mary Ainsworth. Causes of self-harm and suicide are commonly linked to depression, poor childhood parenting, poor child-parent relationships, sexual abuse, the experience of violence such as bullying and family conflict, and suicide of a first-degree relative.
Most studies reveal that although reported cases of suicide among children are few, suicidal thoughts are common particularly among pre-pubertal children. This risk is strongly associated with the tendency of teenagers to contemplate suicide or commit self-harm on themselves (Haidt, 2008). The risk factors for suicide are caused by cumulative effects such that child who is essentially identified as victims of suicide are those who are considered to be burdened by adversity in their daily lives (Haidt, 2008). As such, the primary care concern among social workers are child services providers should focus on understanding the changes that take place when children are growing up in order to understand their risk for engaging in self-harm of suicide.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Factors Influencing Suicide and Self-Harm
Mental Disorders
Psychological autopsy studies on recent suicide cases among teens in many countries have consistently shown that the majority of victims commit suicide due to the effects of their mental disorders. Teenagers tend to perform acts of self-harm so that they can overcome life challenges or a life crisis that seems to be the cause of their mental illness. In addition , teens with physical disabilities tend to feel being isolated from their peers and other members of society . When teenagers are dealing with the psychological challenges of this stage, some fail to find solutions to their problems and develop mental disorders. These include anxiety disorders which are characterized by teens feeling excessively uneasy, worried, and afraid. This condition is common among teens aged between 13 to 18 years, and examples of anxiety disorders include obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobia, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Macionis, 2011). The second mental disorder that leads to the increased rate of suicide among teens is depression, which is characterized by teens losing interest in their daily activities, loss of appetite, and problems when sleeping. There is also Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which is characterized by a continuing unattention which interferes with their daily activities (Macionis, 2011). Eating disorders are also common among teens, and this maladaptive behavior happens in circumstances where closes members of their families discriminate them for their illnesses or physical abilities.
Jean Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development
Some of the theories that can be used to understand challenges that teens with mental disorders experience include the cognitive theory of development, by Jean Piaget, who believed that there were four main stages of the development of the children’s brain (Herzog & Herzog, 1997). As children moved through the stages , they experienced some changes in memory processing. For example, they would learn how to solve problems which were related to object permanence, transitivity, assimilation, and deductive reasoning (Herzog & Herzog, 1997). Piaget came up with four main stages of cognitive development, namely sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operational stages as shown in the diagram below.
A Diagram Showing the Stages of Cognitive Development
Based on this theory, Piaget suggested that children would have developmental problems during the adolescence stage, which was marked as the formal operational stage. During his stage, this stage occurred when children were nearing puberty from the age of 11 years, during which they were focused on developing abstract thinking. This stage enabled children to developed problem-solving abilities by being able to reason their ways to plausible situations. If this stage were interrupted, they would develop illogical and non-systematic thinking and become incapable of deductive reasoning, which would be manifested the development of various mental disorder such as stress and depression. As Steinmetz (2013) explains, children with mental disorders would likely resort to suicide or self-harm as ways of dealing with their challenges.
Trauma
Several studies have shown that there is a relationship between suicidal attempts among teens and childhood trauma or family factors. Consequently, children who experience family rivalry and bad parenting by their experience have a higher prevalence of self-harm compared to normal children that are raised in normal families. Steinmetz (2013) argues that this may be the result of children experiencing less or nor support from parents or the community. As Steinmetz (2013) indicates, girls have higher rates of self-harm compared to boys due to the position of their gender in society . Also, child abuse in the form of sexual, physical, and emotional abuses are some of the factors towards self-harm . Thus, the presence of childhood trauma is believed to be linked with contemplated suicide and self-harm among teenagers, such that 35 percent of teens harm themselves for the first time when they reach 12 years compared to 37 percent of adults ( Jordan, 2018). Deliberate self-harm is likely to be malignant at the beginning of puberty, as young people with trauma tend to have low emotional expressivity, low self-esteem , and isolate themselves from their significant others in society .
Erikson’s Theory
Identity vs. Role Confusion
Erikson developed a psychosocial theory in which he emphasized that the stages of human development encompassed the mastery of attitudes, skills, and ideas. He argued that at each stage of development, individuals learned various values, which included positive and negative virtues. If they were successfully able to balance between the two contrasting traits, they would be ready to move to the next stage (Herzog & Herzog, 1997). However, if they failed to find the balance, they would develop maladaptive behaviors that would manifest as deviant or vulnerable behaviors in their later developmental stages. For example, teenagers were supposed to learn the concepts of identity versus role confusion, a stage that Erikson marked as beginning from the time children reached the adolescence stage (Herzog & Herzog, 1997) . This stage occurred between 12 to 18 years aged children during which their main task was to learn the sense of self, such as asking themselves the question, “Who am I.” as such, Erikson explained that most teenagers found themselves exploring various roles and ideas while trying to remain true to their beliefs and values. However, if teenagers failed to learn the two virtues, they would develop a maladaptive tendency of having a weak sense of self, which would be linked to other deviant behaviors that include suicidal attempts and self-harm ( Jordan, 2018). Teenagers that were most vulnerable to the risk of developing deviant behaviors were those who had a history of childhood abuse and family trauma, such that they unsuccessfully passed through the early stages of psychosocial development which were posited by Erikson.
Alcohol and Drugs
Some studies show that alcohol and drugs tend to cluster in some families, such as a longitudinal study that was conducted on psychiatric teenagers of suicide attempts showed that there was an increased risk of suicide among first degree relatives who were under substance abuse. According to Jordan (2018) , alcohol and drugs are common precursors to deliberate self-harm whereas alcohol is observed to have an increased risk factor for suicide and self-harm . Teenagers that are raised in families that abuse alcohol stands at a risk of engaging in the same behaviors, which also elevate the risk of attempted suicide when they engage in self-harm behaviors. Jordan (2018) argues that alcohol involvement remains an act of self-harm for both genders but more common in female teens than in males. Adolescents argue that drugs and alcohol help them to relieve stress, but this form of self-medication is also reported to play a central role in causing negative experiences and negative feelings, including contemplating suicide.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was a physician who developed a psychosexual theory to emphasize the role that parents play in managing their children’s sexual and aggressive drives. Freud believed that the human personality consisted of a concentration of energy which would move from one body part to the next at each stage of psychosexual development. He suggested that the human personality is made up of three internetworking parts which were Id, ego, and superego. According to his theory, the id controlled desires, ego, the conscious, rational part, and superego, the interactions with parents and the significant others. Based on where the libido was located , Freud called these areas erogenous zones came up with five stages of development. These stages were oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages (Herzog & Herzog, 1997). For example, he believed that during the Latency Stage, which was between 6 and 12 years, children would start to develop superego. During this stage, children would begin to adopt morally acceptable behaviors by emulating the values of their parents and other important adults. However, as Jordan (2018) explains, this would be unlikely among teenagers who had bad childhood upbringing or bad parenting.
Smartphones and Social Media
After the first smartphone was introduced in 2007, the ownership of smartphones increased to 73 percent in 2015 in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, every child that is aged 10 years in the United States has a smartphone. In 2015, a study showed that most than 50 percent of teens spent most of their time interacting on social media while 80 percent did it every day. However, a new phenomenon of cyberbullying also emerged whereby teens who spent more time on their smartphones had increased suicide risk factors ( Jordan, 2018). Longitudinal and experimental research designs have further shown that social media leads to unhappiness instead of helping teens to relieve themselves of stress. Given the greater emotional vulnerability that teens face, recent reports show that young groups are at a higher risk of self-harm and suicide as a co-current risk factor.
Ainsworth’s Types of Attachment
Mary Ainsworth extended the work of John Bowlby by developing new explanations for insecure attachment. She explained that the primary contribution the attachment theory is based on the premise that children choose to remain attached to their parents so long as they receive the care that they need. However, when they feel insecure, they will resort to isolated activities and become upset when caregivers invade into their privacy (Herzog & Herzog, 1997). Mary suggested that children become attached to their parents when they feel secure; a form of attachment makes them feel comfortable before their parents. However, they can choose to avoid contact or resist the attachment when they become angry ( Jordan, 2018). This theory helps to understand why teenagers have resorted to preferring to share most of their issues on social media, exposing them to cyberbullies who increase their risk of contemplating suicide or causing self-harm .
The findings above show that adolescents undergo some sensitive changes that can make them successful in leading them to the pathways of contemplating suicide or engaging in self-harm . Teenagers do not always have the power to change problems that confront them, but they feel relieved if they find alternative ways to relieve them of their life challenges, which includes committing suicide. The theories of childhood development demonstrate that social environments that include the family, friend, and peers are crucial factors that increase the risk of suicide and self-harm among teens.
References
Haidt, J. (2008). Morality. A Journal of Association for Psychological Science, 3(1), 65-72.
Herzog, M., & Herzog, S. (1997). Study of the Child: Theories of Development. Learning Seed :
Alexander Street Press Education in Video from AUO Library.
Jordan, E. P. (2018). Everything you need to know about suicide and self-harm . New York, NY:
The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc .
Love, P.G., & Guthrie, V.L. (2011). Understanding and applying cognitive development theory:
New directions for student services, number 88 . New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Macionis, J.J. (2011). Society: The basics (11thed.) . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Steinmetz, S.K. (2013). Family and support systems across the life span. Delaware: Springer
Science & Business Media.
